Welcome to the Quillett Podcast. I'm your host Jonathan Kay, a senior editor at

Quillett. Quillett is where free thought lives. We are an independent

grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

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articles and early access to Colette social events. And today's guest is Joan

Smith, whom our Colette readers will know from her detailed and scathing articles about the state of gender politics in Scotland,

including her most recent offering which appeared on August 4th under the title Gaslighting Scottish Rape Victims in the name of

Trans Inclusion. In that article Joan brought readers up to speed on the bizarre

situation at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Center which has been overseen in recent years by a trans-identified

biologically male CEO named Mereedal Wadwa.

As Joan will discuss, Wadwa was recently suspended from his job, or possibly fired.

It's not clear which, following a number of scandals.

These included Wadwa's bullying of a rape crisis counselor named Ross Adams who'd ask questions

about why clients at the rape crisis center weren't being given honest information

about the fact that the center was being run by a man.

Thanks to the Center's fixation on transgender inclusion, moreover,

a subsequently convicted male sex offender named Cameron Downing

was allowed to access the Center center services on the claim that he wasn't

really a man but actually non-binary.

As we will discuss, these scandals at the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Center reflect a larger pattern in Scotland.

Under former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who resigned in 2023,

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